Managed Print Services: Finding the Money
As a former help-desk technician, I have some strong opinions about managed print services (MPS). Channel chatter about the MPS market is growing louder. More MPS conferences are planned, more research is surfacing and our third-annual MSPmentor 100 survey reveals some interesting MPS trends. So where is managed print heading next? Here are some clues.
According to our ongoing MSPmentor 100 survey (deadline for entries is today, Dec. 11), nearly 29 percent of managed service providers say they offer managed print services. But MSPmentor raised the following question in November 2009:
Is the managed print market really that hot? Or are printer makers talking up the opportunity because their traditional printer sales are under intense pressure?
Making Their Pitch
No doubt, printer makers are stepping up their MPS educational efforts. According to a recent Quocirca survey (co-sponsored by Xerox), almost 70% of respondents said that better management of print infrastructure is a strategic imperative. The big push, of course, being cost savings. Even with a recession, the survey showed that 90% of people said they’d continue to deploy managed print services — simply to reduce the cost of printing, sharing and updating documents.
Sometimes we’re skeptical of sponsored research, but the report had some interesting figures:
- 41 percent of respondents say printing accounts for more than 10 percent of their IT budget; in the financial services sector this number rises to 65 percent.
- Nearly half of U.S. respondents expect to gain savings of more than 30 percent through an MPS contract.
- 60 percent of current MPS users are satisfied with the cost savings achieved since implementing MPS, with an additional 25 percent indicating that the cost savings exceeded expectations.
Real-world Experience
Here’s what caught my attention: As a former Help Desk Technician, I saw the disjointed effort of our IT team to manage numerous printers. We had a huge closet stocked full of printer cartridges for a multiude of printers across the company. Some were for executives’ personal printers, others were for shared printers in departments. There was:
- No consistency.
- No rhyme or reason to when we ordered certain cartridges.
- There was also the effort and time spent installing printer drivers, re-setting up printers for newly imaged computers, assigning the correct IP address for network printers, and of course, the physical setup of a new printer.
With all those challenges in mind, educational summits like the North American MPS conference are popping up. I haven’t been to the conference previously so I can’t give you a feel for its content. But I certainly endorse the concept of managed print education. The market seems ripe with opportunity…
Or am I falling for the hype?
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You are not falling for the hype – as a matter of fact, you are a bit late to the game…that’s ok.
You swerve into many different subjects around MPS – and you outline some challenges fairly well.
As you know, printers and output have always been the “bane” of most IT environments and IT people – the last devices to be considered.
A phenomena as old as the HP LaserJet Series II – IT guys didn’t care about printers and didn’t really want to support them, because that would mean leaving the mysterious glass room. And by “support them” I mean end-users, pain in the butts that they are.
So for DECADES, organizations ignored printers and actually encouraged or at the very least looked the other way when end users started making their own decisions on printers.
Heck, up until two years ago, most companies let Purchasing run the decision process when obtaining CONNECTED COPIERS.
Why?
Because to the IT yuks, a 55 page per minute, duplexing, scanning monster of a machine isn’t as sexy as the new Quad Core from Intel; it’s more fun to work on an Exchange upgrade then it is to load Canon drivers.
So the problem grew – the Glass rooms started to fill up with dead printers.
Supplies closets around the globe swelled with toner cartridges, fuser assemblies, waste toner bottles. Pushing out the Oki ribbons and rolls of thermal transfer, fax paper.
Along with these supplies, and exponentially, cost grew. And just like those “unseen” toner cartridges, these costs where hidden in plain view.
Nobody cared.
So today, MPS is the “Hot New Thing” – especially to those who should have seen this coming 10 years ago.
Not a day goes by now, when some research firm or IT forum upchucks a blurb or two about this new arena.
Indeed, every single copier or printer manufacturer has a MPS program and it is very easy to call it “hype” because there is hype.
But,there are Points of Light out here in the turbulent, dark, MPS Ecosystem. You mention one above – the North American MPS Conference.
I also recommend checking out Your MPSA (Managed Print Services Association). A non-profit dedicated to the Managed Print Services niche.
The MPS ride so far has been a bumpy one, and still the interest grows.
Thanks for the great post and keep up the good work!
G
You are not falling for the hype. I’m sure it seems like MPS at times has been more like a black-hole for consultants to charge big fees to show people the way to MPS bliss. Each consultant tried to dispensed enough “soma” to usher in the Brave New World of MPS. Has there been hype…yes. That doesn’t change the fact that many of our custoemrs are selling MPS. The percentage of our business at GreatAmerica that is MPS has steadily increased the past few years. I think everyone is educated about MPS today, and the days of hype are in the past.
The real problem about the hype within the MPS industry is the lack or real experience that some of these huge copier/laser printer dealers/manufacturers or should I say “box pushers” actually have. Folks like Mr.Walters (above) who have been doing MPS since before it was called Managed Print Services are the kind of people you want in charge of your fleet. Sure if your a Global company with locations on several continents you may have to settle for one of the monsters of MPS (Canon,Ikon,HP,etc) however if you have an MPS provider like Greg nearby your business and if the size of your business fits with their program you would be well advised to have someone such as Greg or another person/company with similar experience in the “trenches” so to speak handle your MPS needs.
Ok – I must say, where else, but in the MPS Ecosystem, would one find a comment that references “Soma”, and leave breadcrumbs behind for those unfamilar – Brave New World(Google it)
Nathan, thanks for the shout out, check is in the mail!
3rd Greg’s the charm…. The major hurdle with MPS is: It’s complicated. It’s far easier for people to go on buying printers/scanners once every 4 years and having the office manager buy cartridges and paper when the display tells you to do it than it is for a company to completely shift its printing paradigm over to MPS. Don’t get me wrong, I love this idea of MPS and every MSP should be thoughtfully considering the opportunities. I have yet to see a simplified pitch or proposal for MPS for the SMB market that is cost effective and easy for the customer to understand and rationalize. I’m sure we’ll get there, I just hope its sometime before e-paper makes killin’ trees passe.
In years past, MIS became the new “silicon cowboys”, attempting to bring order and enhanced productivity to you and I. Soon, that moniker fell out of season and IT became the moniker for all of us pocket-protector-wearing, propeller heads. This subsequently lead to the the Dot-Com era where IT=SEXY (later to have the “E” dropped in Web 2.0 – read SXY, like Flickr).
Needless to say, at one time the profession of sales was a highly esteemed art, of relationships and understanding – giving way to microwaved-popcorn motives and spandex solutions.
Somewhere in there, there are people who are fighting for you – the customer! I sat and talked with “sales rep” today who decided to enlighten me that all manufactures were simply there to “keep the lines moving”.
But GET THIS – Whether that is true or not is actually irrelevant – isn’t it. That’s like telling a fish to quit breathing through water (Wait, do I have to pay royalties to Greg to use the word “fish” now?). I don’t hold anything against McDonald’s for serving me a Big Mac and I don’t hold anything against Stephen King for writing The Shining; that’s what they do and they are good at it!
But whose responsibility is it to deliver a managed service? Hmmm, the word ‘partnership’ comes to mind… but I have observed that so many customers want drive through service – to wash their hands of the whole dirty mess.
Let me think, if I could save you 30% off of your current output platform – or I could create opportunities for you to accelerate your time to cash and retain customers… I wonder which one you might choose? How much might that be worth?
If you want to get in the trenches – then get IN the trenches – WITH your customer.
Dave, I appreciate you sponsoring the opportunity to open the conversation up about a subject these fine few are so very passionate about.
Warmest Regards,
Ken Stewart
ChangeForge | MPSA
A somewhat related update: ConnectWise and Xerox today (Dec. 15, 2009) announced ConnectWise Integration with Xerox PagePack, in a bid to “streamline billing for solution providers.”
-jp